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CERN’s report of measuring neutrinos traveling faster than the speed
of light immediately started speculation that it showed a problem
with
Special Relativity. The actually measurement was that the
neutrinos were traveling about 20 parts per million faster than the
speed of light of 299,792,458 m/s. This means that the neutrinos
were going 6 km/s faster than light. If these results are
confirmed it would still does not pose a problem for
Special Relativity since not being able to travel at or faster
than the speed of light only applies to particles with a real non
zero rest mass. A particle like a photon that has a zero rest mass
travels at the speed of light. Particles that travel faster than
light have been speculated for years under the name tachyons.
Tachyons would have a negative imaginary rest mass giving it a real
non zero mass at speeds above the speed of light. It would however
be incapable of being decelerated to the speed of light below it.
Two Indian physicists have found serious a problem with the
experimental observations that neutrinos went faster than Light.
That problem has to do with conservation of energy. That is that the
reaction that produced the neutrinos did not produce the energy they
would have had traveling at their measured speed.
Interestingly there is a way of reconciling these results that is
consistent with established physics, specifically
Quantum Mechanics. That solution is that the CERN neutrinos did
travel at sub_light speeds but only through the space they actually
went through and that the instantly skipped the rest of it making
their average speed faster than light.
Quantum Mechanics has several phenomenons like
quantum tunneling that allow this to happen. If confirmed this
would be strong confirmation of instantaneous quantum phenomenon. |
